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Comment by derda | Hacker News Reader

Its a EU thing that is pushed from the commission to the individual countries. Germany implemented this a while ago but it was ruled unconstitutional by our constitutional court, so the law was repealed and all collected data was deleted (at least thats what they say). Now the government is facing fines from the EU for not implementing the law.

Its awful that an institution of questionable democratic legitimation (EU commission) is forcing a democratic government to implement laws, that are against their constitution. The worst thing is, that the big political parties dont see anything wrong in this.

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Its awful that an institution of questionable democratic legitimation (EU commission) is forcing a democratic government to implement laws, that are against their constitution.

You used the word "democratic" twice. But I don't see what democracy has to do with it. The whole point of a democracy is to allow the majority to bully the minority. The protections you need are Constitutional limitations.

The Commission is undemocratic because it holds great power, yet its members are unelected. Contrast with the EU Parliament, which is elected and therefore far more accountable to the electorate.

The Commission's staff are chosen and approved by both the indirectly elected Council (Member State government ministers) and the directly elected European Parliament[1]. The Parliament has forced the dissolution of the Commission before.

http://ec.europa.eu/atwork/basicfacts/index_en.htm#chooses

By that standard most governments are undemocratic. The UK is a particularly interesting case with a monarch that can dissolve parliament, appoint the prime minister, as well as hereditary and life peers in the upper house.

The key difference here is that while that is theoretically the case, the Queen does not in practice arbitrarily dissolve parliament, and her appointing the prime minister is basically a formality. The House of Lords, while it is fairly undemocratic, doesn't seem to be doing any worse a job of looking out for the rest of us than the Commons are. Contrast this to the various EU directives which frequently are interfering in local affairs, often not in a way that's in our best interests.

I think we need to seperate two issues here: One is whether or not a particular government does a good job and the other is how democratic it is.

The first question is too subjective in general to have a useful debate. I'll just say that complaints about interference in local affairs have been a mainstay of all political unions ever formed, including The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Just ask the Scottish. And it's completely natural because "interference" is just another word for "governing".

However, the parent post was about the democratic legitimacy of the EU commission. The commission is not directly elected just as most other governments are not directly elected. In most countries cabinet ministers are not even elected MPs. Parliaments are elected and sometimes heads of states but rarely governments. The closest thing to an elected government are probably the presidential systems in the US and France.

Most critics of the EU do not want an elected EU president or a directly elected EU commission as that would obviously take away more powers from the nation states. That's a legitimate position, but it's incompatible with criticising the EU for not being democratic enough.

A closer comparison is the suggestion that although UK government departments are headed by ministers, they are actually run by the permanent civil service, which is akin to the EU Commission.

Its worse than that. Google "democratic deficit european commission" it will give you a lot of material on the problem. For the lawmakers (big parties) in the member states it is not a bug, its a feature. It is much easier to pass a controversial law, like this one, if its made away from the public somewhere in Brussels. And when there is critique, you can blame it on the EU, and that the country would face sanctions if they dont implement it.

We don't have a "constitution" in the same way that the USA does.

there is a deep tug-of-war in this. The EU position is that European Law is higher level than any law of member states, including their constitutions. States, generally, say that EU law takes its very legitimation from the souce of national law and, consequently, cannot overrule it.

We had this kind of conflict here in the US once. It didn't end well.

I wouldn't worry about that, here in Europe we have a long tradition and history of solving our problems in a conciliatory and, above all else, peaceful way.

Which of the world wars do you mean?

Was that ironic? Our "long tradition" is stretching for a whopping 65 years, not exactly like the century-plus example our American friends can vaunt.

"Its a EU thing that is pushed from the commission to the individual countries."

Citation please. As far as I know, it isn't.

What EU directive is this?

Please link or state the directive before claiming such.

There you go: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive

Also check the german wikipedia article, for more references.

You'll notice substantial differences between the EC document and the UK version.

The EU says:

Article 4 Access to data Member States shall adopt measures to ensure that data retained in accordance with this Directive are provided only to the competent national authorities in specific cases and in accordance with national law. The procedures to be followed and the conditions to be fulfilled in order to gain access to retained data in accordance with necessity and proportionality requirements shall be defined by each Member State in its national law, subject to the relevant provisions of European Union law or public international law, and in particular the ECHR as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights.

That would leave the UK quite within its rights to require a court order or warrant before access was granted. But Oh no.

The EU Directive makes no mention of logging Web URLs either.

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